In the beginning----------------
Maybe 18-20 years ago(??)---my hands are "going to sleep"----sometimes so bad the they hurt enough to wake me up. I don't have a primary care physician----or any other kind. I do have several doctor "racing friends"---who doctor me "free for nothing". Off I go to my best one, who asks, "How long since you had an EKG?. "Well, I had a Stress EKG in order to renew my competition license when I turned 40." He scowled, and asked, "Want to guess how long it's going to be before you have your next one?"
I'm leaving the hospital near his office about 30 minutes later with a piece of paper in my hand. I don't have my glasses with me, but I can make out the word ABNORMAL up in the heading. Back at his office, I hear the words. "You need to be under the care of a Cardiologist----mine's Bob Gentry---if he's good enough for me, he's good enough for you!!"
Dr. Bob tells me I have a 65% blockage in the blood vessel that feeds the main heart muscle----and that's "not bad enough to fix", but we'll put you on some blood pressure medication to expand the blood vessel". 65% is not bad enough to fix is a shocker----but I'm on the meds for quite a spell---years!!
By the by, my hands going to sleep was "Carpel Tunnel Syndrome"---which went away all by itself.(??????)
I get up from my computer desk "too fast" one morning, and get dizzy like you do. About two minutes later, I'm hearing the Boss Lady calling "Ralph, Ralph, Ralph"---and I wake up on the floor. I have "carpet burns" on my knees and elbows. Other than that minor detail, I'm good to go.
It doesn't take me too long to decide if I've got the brains God gave a peanut, I'd better get dressed and head for the Emergency Room. Our small town E.R. reception area is a basically empty room---a few chairs----a speaker thing on the wall, a sliding frosted glass window behind which sits a real person, and a door though which worthwhile things happen. In I go. The speaker thing on the wall says, "May I help you?", and I say, "Yeah, I got dizzy and passed out."
BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! The door flies open, and I'm on a Gurney headed inside RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scary stuff!!
Next I'm in an ambulance headed for the main hospital in Chattanooga----and I'm more than a little bit irritated, because the ambulance is built on a truck chassis; and I wanted to go in the helicopter.
In between time, I've been asked by a Mutt & Jeff team of doctors, "What happened?" "I don't know, but it's happening again----right now!!" They spin around like they've been shot to look at my heart rate monitor, so I look too. It says 37-----hence the ride to the big hospital in a truck.
I'm there for 6 days---Cardiac Intensive Care for 3 days, regular Cardiac Care for 3 more----plus a couple of hours the next morning-----$60,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The good news is I'm out of pocket for ZIP-ZERO-NADA-----------good insurance on top of Medicare.
The problem's been diagnosed as the medication I've been taking FOR YEARS (Metoprolol??) to expand my blocked blood vessel. The cure is to stop taking it----------IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!-------and go home with some different meds. Fine! When? First thing in the morning. Also fine.
First thing in the morning (when I'm supposed to go home) a new face arrives. It's a Lady Doctor who's in charge of "Monitoring". It turns out I, and every other patient in Cardiac Care, has been monitored 24 hours a day ever since admission. I'm the only patient there who's been up and walking around, complaining about not being allowed to go to the bathroom---and complaining about not getting a portable bathroom RIGHT NOW, when I asked for it---because a bed pan is NOT FOR ME--OUT OF THE QUESTION!!! All the rest of my new friends are in "induced comas"----which looked pretty much like dead!!
Lady Doctor tells me they think my new meds will do the trick, but they'd like to give me a Pacemaker--------"think of it as the suspenders---as in " a belt AND suspenders". So I'm a little late going home. My new Pacemaker is supposed to come on if/when my heart rate drops below 70. It's never come on.
My pacemaker is monitored by a little transmitter beside my bed, which rats me out every night about 1 A.M.----telling the head shed in Chattanooga what's been happening. Nothing's been happening since I got the pacemaker, but I go in to the BIG hospital in Chattanooga twice a year for a "device check", where a computer talks to the pacemaker to see how it's doing. It's doing fine, but next year is when it's batteries are supposed to wear out and I get a new one----unless I get lucky, and die first.
I'm 86. I figure I should have died a long time ago like pretty much everybody else does. If I'd been so lucky, I'd have been long gone before my body wore out, and got me into "Pain Management". That's where you go when you have stuff wrong that needs to be fixed, but your "hip doc" and your "back doc" doctors are properly terrified to put you to sleep long enough to fix them for fear they won't be able to wake you up again------and then they might have to talk to lawyers.
Now Pain Management seems to be working (LOOOOOOOOOONG needles, guided by X Ray, stuck into nerves in your back every now and then), but it ain't working good enough fast enough yet so I can do stuff I used to do---little things like walking around without a cane, getting in and out of my new Boy Street Racer Hot Rod, even mowing the lawn----which now costs $260 a mow, but it's a BIG yard, and they do it better than I ever did-----way better-----looks like a showplace---and they do any and everything else that needs to be done outside----and they're nice folks to boot! I had my most recent "procedure" two days ago. I can walk without my cane today (but I carry it with me just in case).
Gettin' old's a BI-ITCH!! On the other hand, I'm still here to fuss about it.
Ralph Tremaine
Oh! The mowers also trim the Boxwood shrubs---hundreds of them! I never counted them, because I didn't want to know! The "garage yard" is about 15 paces by 15 paces. It has 54 Boxwood shrubs in it!! I decided I didn't want to know how many more there were right about then! There are $1500 worth more altogether---to be trimmed---but that's only once a year.
GGGGGGHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
...Ben
Hence the reason why my mother-in-law will outlast ALL of us! 
